The Rattle For Kobani
Issue #239
Dear readers: 2024 is just about over and the regional wars are far from it.
After tomorrow’s Economy recap, we’re taking a holiday break, but we’ll continue covering developments in our members-only chat.
We extend a sincere thank you to all of our supporters, who’ve kept this newsletter going for 5+ years now.
That said, we’ll be back in the new year with our annual predictions issue. In the meantime, protect your holiday decorations from those İstanbul cats.
In this week’s recap:
Offensive looms over NE Syria
Ankara rides shotgun in Damascus
VDL talks refugee aid
Opposition stumbles on Syria response
Domestic and diplomatic wraps
Hakkari amcas watch jets circle the sky
Also from us this week:
Diego Cupolo interviews Ioannis N. Grigoriadis on Turkey-Greece normalization (Turkish only)
Sibel Hürtaş reports on Turkey’s 2025 budget debates and the nation’s economic outlook.
Since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime, an old dream of Turkish nationalists has come back to the foreground.
Some commentators are openly counting parts of Syria as Turkish soil and fantasizing about including Aleppo and Damascus in Turkey’s car plate system. “81 Düzce”, that dream starts, referring to Turkey’s newest province, continuing with 82 Halep, 83 Şam … Sometimes, these talks also include the Iraqi cities of Kirkuk and Mosul.
Pres. Erdoğan brought his own remarks to the irredentist mocktail Wednesday.
“Every incident that has occurred in our region, especially in Syria, reminds us of this fact: Turkey is bigger than Turkey,” he said, adding that Turkey cannot limit its horizons to its current surface area and cannot “escape or hide from its destiny.”
With this in mind, it looks like Turkey is set to back the Syrian National Army (SNA) in a looming offensive on Kobani, which is held by Kurdish-led and US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
While Defense Min. Yaşar Güler said Sunday, “The PKK/YPG terrorist organization will be dismantled in Syria sooner or later,” US officials told the WSJ of a troop buildup near Kobani. Locals also told AFP about an increase in Turkish soldiers patrols, but reported no unusual military activity.
Meanwhile, a US-brokered ceasefire was extended until the end of the week, according to the statement of the US State Dept, though a Turkish defense ministry official refuted that claim today.
SDF commander Mazloum Abdi announced Tuesday that he was ready for “the establishment of a demilitarized zone in Kobani, with the redeployment of security forces under the US supervision and presence.”
A US Defense spox reacted, by saying: “the US force presence in Syria is focused on the defeat ISIS mission.”
Mohammed A. Salih, a non-resident senior fellow at FPRI, told Turkey recap that the US “needs to demonstrate greater resolve” in deterring a Turkish-backed operations against SDF-held areas:
“It ultimately comes down to political will whether the US chooses to use its leverage,” said Salih, while highlighting the “growing bipartisan pressure” in US Congress – particularly with threat of sanctions against Turkey.
“Whether US efforts will bear fruit remains to be seen,” Salih continued, stating a ceasefire “agreement would not only ensure peace in northeast Syria but also redefine the Turkish-SDF relationship into one that is productive and cooperative in the longer term.”
According to Aliza Marcus, a journalist who covered the PKK extensively, Kurdish forces in Kobani do not pose real threats against Turkey. “The border is perfectly flat, and Turkish tanks (backed by drones) can roll over whenever they want,” she wrote on X. “This isn’t about security, it’s about dismantling Kurdish control.”
Losing Kobani would be a significant blow to the SDF. It’s strategically important for the NE Syria administration and also symbolically significant for the US-Kurdish relationship given that it was where US-Syrian Kurdish cooperation first began against ISIS in 2014.
The offensive on Kobani could also embolden remaining ISIS elements, who will likely try to exploit the weaknesses of the SDF to orchestrate prison breaks or operations against SDF and possibly US troops.
“The future for the Syrian Democratic Forces is bleak, very bleak,” Syria expert Aron Lund said in a Duvar Q&A. According to Lund, Turkey and the SNA will seize as much SDF territory as they can. “There’s just no way for the SDF to survive long-term without a foreign patron that can keep Turkey at bay.”
– Ingrid Woudwijk
Bumper to bumper diplomatic traffic: Ankara rides shotgun in Damascus
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